Chapter 2: Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a form of passing off something that is not ours as our own. Simply put, it is a form of stealing. In the world of academic work, ideas are abstractions. Taking someone’s ideas can be difficult to prove sometimes; however, there are many ways that an experienced teacher or researcher can discern if someone has plagiarized or taken others’ work in an unethical manner. One instance of plagiarism can be accomplished by paying another person to write an essay or to do an assignment. An archetypal example of plagiarism is doing a Google search on a chosen essay topic and finding a readymade essay online which can be submitted to the teacher with minor changes such as reformatting, or taking an essay written by another student and submitting it as one’s own. However, these examples are far from a complete illustration of plagiarism. In reality, like many aspects of writing, plagiarism is a very complex and subjective issue, with few simple black and white answers. Many students may think that if they did not plagiarize on purpose, they are innocent of plagiarism. In reality, the majority of cases of plagiarism are unintentional. People commit plagiarism because they do not realize that what they are doing is a form of plagiarism, because they are not careful when using in-text citation and referencing, or even because of weak language skills. The purpose of this chapter is to deepen the reader’s understanding of the issue of plagiarism, of what constitutes plagiarism, and of writing practices to be careful of. The reasons that we learn what plagiarism is and how to avoid plagiarism are to prevent us from being accused of plagiarism and to benefit as much as possible from the learning process.